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Innermost Recommends: March 2021

31st March 2021

31st March 2021

By Allison Strang

The 8th of March came and went, and with that the official celebration of International Women’s Day. In our eyes, female empowerment and the fight for equality lasts 365 days a year. At Innermost HQ, we utilised March to focus on all things female. We’ve been reading, watching and doing things to grow our understanding of what inspiring women have done, what female figures are currently accomplishing and what we all can do to continue this celebration in the future. We love sharing our finds with the Innermost community, so without further ado here’s what we got up to in February.

Reading

The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem by Amanda Gorman

“This passionate poem has now forged a place in history, combining a sense of hope and unity just when the world needs it. The young poet made her mark by sharing her words during Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. Amanda Gorman is uplifting and unforgettable.” – Shiv

Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis

“The idea that the women who are outspoken, opinionated and determined are the ones that change the tide in society gives me a sense of empowerment. Hearing these stories of real female figures makes me more confident in stepping out and stepping up as a woman.” – Caitlin

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“This novel is where feminism, dark humour and honesty collide. It touches on ambition and female strength while juggling with topics surrounding mental illness. The author combines her own truth with bits of fiction to create a woman that we can all relate to.” - Charlotte

Watching

Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry on Apple TV+

“Billie Eilish is such a talented and driven artist, so having a look into her family life, a behind the scenes peek into her artistry and an understanding of her own experiences makes her music hit a bit differently. I would definitely recommend watching how this teenage girl has made magic.” – Caitlin

Hidden Figures

“This film puts three powerful women at the forefront of history, showing how a team of female African-American mathematicians made NASA what it is today. Despite being hit with racial and gender discrimination, the women conquered their goals, giving us all something to celebrate: the beautiful minds of these ladies” – Cash

Gilmore Girls

“This show encompasses feel-good themes while highlighting a fun, independent single mother as she raises her incredibly intelligent teenage daughter. Watching their lives unfold is entertaining, rewarding and nonetheless relatable. I could watch it over and over again. In fact, I do.” - Allison

Doing

Practising Manifestation

“Life can feel out of control, so getting a little bit more grounded and a whole lot more positive can give you a grasp on those things that you don’t necessarily have a say in. I’ve been starting every morning by giving myself affirmations and reminding myself how badass I really am.” – Allison

Outdoor Swimming

“This warm weather is not coming and going unnoticed. Staying active is easy when you get to splash around and smash out some laps in the swimming pool. Bring on those unending summer days… I can’t wait to go for a few more swims.” – Cash

Cross Country Running

“I’ve been really enjoying going for some longer runs to build my endurance and get my exercise endorphins flowing. Fresh air just feels so much better when you’re pushing yourself to a new personal best or running a new route that you’ve been dying to try.” - Charlotte

That’s all we’ve got for March. If you want to see what we got up to last month, you can check out February’s recommendations here.

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Other Insights

What Happened To My Training Over Summer (Honestly)
I did not train well this summer. A holiday to spend time with my family, a run of work trips, a couple of injuries I was trying to cope with (left shoulder and right forearm for those who are interested). If you'd asked me in June how consistent I'd be over the summer, I'd have said very. I was wrong. Most people quietly assume the founder of a wellness brand has this figured out. The truth is I run a brand, I try to have a life outside it, and summer is the season where routine goes to die for almost everyone I know. I don't think that's a personal failing. I think it's just what a normal year looks like. What I want to talk about is what actually happens to your body when this happens, because the research here is more reassuring than you might expect. What detraining research actually shows There's a real body of science on this. Strength and cardiovascular fitness don't decline at the same rate, and they don't decline anywhere near as fast as people fear. Cardiovascular fitness is the first thing to soften. Your VO2 max starts drifting down within a couple of weeks of stopping structured training, because your heart and blood vessels adapt to demand quickly in both directions. Strength is a different story. Studies that track people through a few weeks off training consistently find that measurable strength loss is small, often barely noticeable, for the first three to four weeks. The muscle itself takes even longer to shrink in any meaningful way. Several studies looking specifically at detraining periods found that visible loss of muscle protein and structure often doesn't show up until somewhere between five and eight months without any training at all. A summer of patchy sessions is nowhere near that. The reassuring partThe part I find genuinely reassuring is what's called muscle memory, and it's not just a phrase people use to feel better about a break. When you train, your muscle cells add nuclei, essentially more control centres for building protein. Research shows those nuclei stick around for months after you stop training, well past the point where the muscle itself has started to shrink. When you come back, you're not starting from zero. You're reactivating machinery that never actually left. That's a large part of why people who return to training after a long break tend to regain lost strength and size far faster than it took to build in the first place, often within four to eight weeks depending on how long the layoff was. Some of you might remember this happening post-Covid. So if you had a summer like mine, the honest scientific answer is that you probably lost less than it feels like, and you'll get it back faster than you think. What I'm actually doing this month Nothing dramatic. I'm not doing a reset week or a punishing comeback programme. I'm just going back to five structured sessions a week, prioritising the compound lifts I know well, and being honest that the first couple of sessions will feel harder than they did in June.  Don’t forget your proteinThe other thing I'm paying more attention to is protein, simply because it's the one lever that makes the rebuilding phase more efficient. Adequate protein intake supports the muscle protein synthesis that's doing the actual work of restoring what softened over summer. I've been leaning on The Health Protein for this. It's plant-based, built around pea and brown rice protein for a full amino acid profile, with glutamine in there to support recovery. If you'd rather stick with a whey based option, that's a completely reasonable choice too, and The Strong Protein remains built for exactly that. If you had a messy summer, you're not behind. You're just at the start of a normal, unremarkable return to routine, and the research says that's a far shorter road back than most people assume. Forward this to anyonre you know who is dreading their first session back. I'd genuinely like to know what generally works for you post-summer. Structured plan, just showing up once, anything. Reply and tell me. Even if it’s a one-liner, I’d love to hear from you. Read more
The Glow Blend: A Confession
I need to tell you something I've never said publicly, and it's not flattering. When our product team first brought me a plan for a collagen supplement, my honest reaction was no. Not "let me think about it." A flat no. And if I'm being fully honest about why, it wasn't the science. It was that collagen felt, in my head, like a beauty category. Something for someone else's brand. Not ours. I built Innermost around performance and evidence. Protein, creatine, mushrooms, electrolytes. Things I could point to a study for and feel comfortable talking about at a dinner table full of people who workout regularly. Collagen sat in a different mental folder. Skincare aisle. Jars with gold lids and brand sponsorship by one of the Kardashians. I'd absorbed a version of what "beauty" meant without ever examining it. The argument in the room So we had the argument internally. A proper one. A few people on the team pushed back hard, and rightly so. One of them put it to me plainly: we started Innermost to follow the evidence wherever it goes, not to follow it everywhere except the places that feel awkward. That line stuck with me. Here's what changed my mind, and it wasn't a feeling. It was the research. What the evidence actually says Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body. It's structural, it's in your skin, your joints, your gut lining, and production declines steadily from your mid-twenties onward. That's not a marketing claim, that's basic physiology. The question was never whether collagen matters. It was whether supplementing it actually does anything, and that's where most of the category falls apart. Most collagen products on the market use whole collagen molecules, which are too large to be absorbed effectively when you drink them. The ones that do use hydrolysed peptides, which are broken down into smaller chains your body can actually take up, still run into a second problem: dose. A lot of labels list collagen content that sits well below the 2 to 10 grams used in the trials that show measurable effects on skin elasticity and hydration. You're paying for a placebo with good branding. The ingredient most brands leave out The third problem is the one that convinced me completely. Vitamin C isn't a nice-to-have alongside collagen. It's a required co-factor for your body to actually synthesise collagen at the cellular level. Without adequate vitamin C, the enzymes responsible for stabilising collagen structure don't function properly. You can take a perfectly dosed hydrolysed peptide and still get a fraction of the benefit if the product doesn't include enough vitamin C alongside it. Most don't. They sell you the raw material and leave out the one thing your body needs to use it. Once I saw the category clearly, laid out like that, the decision stopped being about how I felt and started being about what the evidence supported. That's the whole operating principle of Innermost. I couldn't defend saying no to a legitimate, well-evidenced product category. What we built So we built The Glow Blend properly. Hydrolysed collagen peptides at a dose that reflects the research, alongside vitamin C, hyaluronic acid for hydration, biotin and folic acid for hair and nail health. Nothing in it that doesn't earn its place. What surprised me after launch The part I didn't expect was the response once we launched it. A good number of the messages came from women, as you'd expect, and they were generous and specific about what they'd noticed. But a surprising number came from men. Customers writing in to say they'd felt exactly what I'd felt, that awkward little flinch at "collagen," and had quietly bought it anyway because the ingredient breakdown made sense to them. That response told me more about why this category needed an honest voice in it than any research paper did. I'm not going to pretend I have this fully figured out. I still catch myself, occasionally, hesitating slightly before I mention it in a room. Old habits sit deeper than good evidence sometimes. But I take it, and increasingly a lot of men I respect take it too, quietly, without needing to make a thing of it. If this sounds familiar If any part of this resonated, and you've felt that same small resistance to a category you assumed wasn't for you, hit reply and tell me. I'd genuinely like to know I'm not the only one who had to get over it. And if you know someone, a friend, a partner, who could use this exact reasoning rather than a tesimonial, forward it on. It might do more good coming from someone else's honesty. Read more